The present invention relates to a method for finding specific information, such as documents and/or files. The invention relates further to an arrangement and also to a mobile station for accomplishing such searching operations.
Ever increasing amount of various kinds of information is provided e.g. by a communications network structure known as Internet. The Internet is a global open communications network connecting through e.g. PSTNs (Public Switched Telephone Network) and/or ISDNs (Integrated Services Digital Network) and suitable gateways a great number of local area networks, such as networks of various companies, universities and other organizations and e.g. MANs (Metropolitan Area Network). The two most often used communication protocols for the Internet are TCP and IP protocols (Transport Control Protocol resp. Internet Protocol). In most cases various services are provided utilizing so called HTTP protocol (HyperText Transfer Protocol) of a WWW (World Wide Web), which provides a graphical Internet interface for a data processing device, such as a microcomputer or a PC (Personal Computer) or a workstation. As the skilled persons knows, the WWW contains HTML documents (HyperText Markup Language) i.e. xe2x80x9chyperdocumentsxe2x80x9d, one such document forming one entity which can contain text, pictures, even moving pictures, sound and links to other documents. A hyperdocument usually has so called xe2x80x9cweb masterxe2x80x9d who updates the document data.
These documents include a great and ever increasing amount of various information. A part of this information may be e.g. information about cities or other geographically limited areas, tourist attractions, shops, services, time tables for trains and busses, companies, libraries, schools etc. which is available in the Word Wide Web. Access to this information would be useful for those who have a current need to know about these matters and interest.
Conventionally the WWW pages or documents are located using a xe2x80x9chttp://www.xxxx.xxxe2x80x9d type address, where the www.xxxx.xx is the address of the page or document in the Internet. Finding a particular page requires a precise knowledge of the actual Internet http address. However, unknown WWW pages can also be located by using a known collection (or a xe2x80x9clistxe2x80x9d) of the WWW pages, such as xe2x80x98Lycosxe2x80x99, or by using some search engine available in the WWW, such as xe2x80x98Alta Vistaxe2x80x99, which have been created to assist the WWW users for locating various documents.
It has become possible to access the WWW pages even by means of a mobile station interface or terminal. The suitable apparatus for this comprise e.g. various portable computers which are provided with a possibility of communicating through a mobile station interface. All major manufacturers of mobile phones do also-provide means for connecting a computer to the communications networks, such as to the Internet, by means of the mobile phone. The mobile station can be either an analog or a digital mobile phone. In addition, some manufacturers do even offer an integrated data processing and mobile station apparatus. In these the integrated portable unit comprises CPU (Central Processing Unit), necessary memory means, a display, a keypad and means for mobile communications and web browsing. Some manufacturers and the publicity often refer these integrated portable communication units as xe2x80x9ccommunicatorsxe2x80x9d.
The current methods for finding information which is available from the WWW do not provide any easy and fast way to access such a local information the user might wish to obtain. It is already possible that a particular WWW service provides information (e.g. a map, time tables, tourist information etc.) concerning a particular geographical place, but the problem is that the user does not always know where he/she actually is when requesting the information. The other problem is that he/she may not even know the address of the local information service, and is not able or capable to search for this kind of address, as he/she usually does not find out the right search criteria. In either case the user must, however, be able to request an exactly correct address, as the address name or the location may not be familiar for the user, or they can even be abbreviations. To obtain the necessary information so as to receive the correct address may take essentially long time, even longer than just simply finding out e.g. an outlet selling paper maps or an tourist information centre distributing printed information. This kind of searching also increases the traffic loads in the used networks and is slow/expensive when cellular connections are used. There are also a lot of other kinds of such per se useful local information which the user is not able to find as he/she is not able to figure out the actual address thereof in the web, or the correct search words for the search engine provided by a web server or he/she receives too many xe2x80x9chitsxe2x80x9d to go through.
Therefore it is an object of the present invention to overcome the disadvantages of the prior art solutions and to provide a new type of solution for finding information, such as documents and/or files available in a communications network, and more precisely, documents and/or files giving information about matters and interests relating to a predetermined area where the user exist at the particular moment.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method and an arrangement by means of which a mobile station (terminal) user is provided with an eased access to documents and/or files including information of a certain area limited geographically by the mobile network the user is currently connected to.
An object of the present invention is to provide a method and arrangement by means of which the user of a mobile station, which is connected to data network through a PSTN and PLMN, is provided with a selection of documents which relate to the geographically area limited by the mobile network the user currently is, and also with a possibility to browse said documents.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will be brought out in the following part of the specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
The objects are obtained by the disclosed method for finding information to a mobile user terminal through a communications network. The inventive method is comprising the steps of establishing a connection between the mobile user terminal and a mobile network operationally connected to said communications network, determining information about the location of the mobile user terminal by means of network apparatus of said mobile network, combining said location information determined by the network apparatus with a request to receive local information dependent from said location information from the communications network, requesting an access to a source of the local information in said communications network on basis of said combination of the location information and the request to receive local information, and retrieving desired local information dependent from said location information.
According to an alternative the invention provides a method for finding information in a communications system comprising a circuit switched network, a packet switched network and a link therebetween, wherein user related location information is obtained by the circuit switched network and the packet switched network is subsequently utilized using said location information.
The invention provides further an arrangement for finding information to a mobile user terminal through a communications network. The arrangement comprises mobile network apparatus comprising base station means for establishing an air interface between the mobile user terminal and a mobile switching center for connecting the mobile network operationally to said communications network, wherein the arrangement is such that information about the location of the mobile user terminal is determined by means of said mobile network apparatus, and means for combining said location information determined by the mobile network apparatus with a request to receive local information dependent from said location information from the communications network, said mobile user terminal being capable of requesting an access to a source of the local information in said communications network on basis of said combination of location information and the request and retrieving desired local information dependent from said location information to be displayed to the user.
According to an alternative an arrangement for finding information in a communications system comprising a circuit switched network, a packet switched network and a link therebetween is provided, wherein user related location information is arranged to be defined by the circuit switched network and the packet switched network is adapted to utilize said location information when an access to an information dependent from said location information is requested.
In addition, the invention provides further a mobile station arranged to communicate with a mobile network via an air or radio interface through base station means, said mobile network being arranged to determine the current location information of the mobile station. The inventive mobile station comprises means for establishing a connection to a communications network through said mobile network, means for combining said location information determined by the mobile network with a request to receive local information dependent from said location information from the communications network, wherein said mobile station is capable of requesting an access to a source of the local information in said communications network as a response to said combining and retrieving desired local information dependent from said location area information to be displayed to the user.
Several advantages are obtained by means of the present invention, since the solution provides a simple, reliable and cost effective manner for accessing documents and/or files which relate to a certain geographical area, such as to a city or county, or to even a certain city district. The invention provides an eased and in some instances even automatic access to local information relating to an area the user is at that moment of connection, said information preferably being in the form of WWW documents. The user does not need to be aware of the actual location he/she currently is, or has just roamed in, and he/she is still provided with an accurate information concerning that area. An example of this is a situation where the user wishes to obtain time tables for trains departing from/arriving to a railway station which is closest to the area defined by the mobile network within which the user is currently located, whereby the user can easily use the local information sites. The user can request the time tables without a need to know the geographical location of the railway, and he/she does not need to know the exact WWW page address either. In addition, the local advertisers are provided with a media for announcing directly through the web to those persons only who actually are within their local business area. In case the local information service provider is using a common xe2x80x9cfront pagexe2x80x9d or similar frames to all pages, the service provider may then sell advertisement space to the local companies. A further advantage in some instances may be that the local authorities are enabled more easily to control and manage that local information which is distributed through servers serving the users of the present invention than would be the case in a xe2x80x9cfully openxe2x80x9d network.
In the following the present invention and the other objects and advantages thereof will be described in an exemplifying manner with reference to the annexed drawings, in which similar reference characters throughout the various figures refer to similar features.